Google Suggest Search Localized in San Francisco, Other Cities

Google April 16 made Google Suggest more local by tailoring results by the cities users are in when they're searching. For example, a user based in San Francisco who searches for "Bart" will see the suggestion for Bay Area Rapid Transit. Google also said it is getting better at suggesting corrections for searches users mistype. Finally, Google added auto-correction to its spelling system in 31 languages across 180 domains. By narrowing the error margin, Google will help users find what they're looking for faster.

Google April 16 improved the efficiency of its search engine by refining
Google Suggest and spell correction and adding auto-correction for different
languages.
Google Suggest offers users queries in a pull-down menu when users begin
typing in searches into the search box on Google.com. The search engine began
offering localized searches by country in March 2009, surfacing relevant search
queries for different regions.

Suggest later began showing suggestions relating to the current results page,
personalized and navigational suggestions, and ad links. Google last December
also added universal search results into Suggest.

Google has narrowed Suggest even further by tailoring suggested queries to a
user's home city.
In Google's example, a user based in San Francisco
who searches for "Bart" will see the suggestion for Bay Area Rapid
Transit. For Chicagoans, a search for "bull" will surface suggestions
for the Chicago Bulls.
Google engineer Pandu Nayak explained this added localization thusly:
"Just as people in the U.K.
often look for different things than people in U.S.,
we've found that people in Seattle
tend to look for different things than people in Dallas."
Google also said it is getting better at suggesting corrections for searches
users mistype (users see this as the "Did you mean" option when they
make an error).
Specifically, Google is providing some relief for peoples' names, which
users sometimes butcher when they type them.
Now when users search on names, Google will recognize descriptors, such as
occupation, education or other contextual affiliations to help users find
information on the right person.
"Users often include other terms such as 'composer' or 'lawyer sparta
wisconsin' in their search query,
which provides valuable context to help us narrow the range of possibilities
for the spelling correction," explained Google's Nayak. "We use these
additional descriptive words to offer you better suggestions."
And this doesn't just cover searches for celebrities or politicians. This
will work whether users are searching for Joe Plumber or Barack Obama. Google
provides examples such as "yuri lehner stanford" and "simon tung machine learning."
Improved spelling correction is available in Google's English spelling
system in the United States,
but the company will roll out the enhancement to other parts of the world and
other languages in the coming months.
Finally, Google added auto-correction to its spelling system in 31 languages
across 180 domains. Users who search for "aiprt" will be whisked
straight to the results for the corrected search, rather than be offered a link
on the results page asking them if they meant to search for
"airport."
By narrowing the error margin, Google will help users find what they're
looking for faster. Ideally, users will find what they need and move on to do
the next search.
The faster Google serves searches, the more users will search. The more
users search, the more ads they will see. Putting more ads in front of users
means more money for Google's AdWords program.
Google's emphasis on speed has helped it rake in $22 billion a year in
advertising and helped it post a 37 percent profit hike in the first quarter of 2010.